Morphine disposition in opiate-intoxicated patients: relevance of nonspecific opiate immunoassays.

The use of routine nonspecific immunoassays to detect or quantitate opiates in biological fluids raises the question of the relevance of such immunoassays in the investigation of opiate overdose disposition. We investigated the plasma disposition of morphine in 13 patients intoxicated by the intravascular (i.v.) (n = 5) or oral routes (n = 8) using both a highly morphine-specific antibody radioimmunoassay (RIA) and a nonspecific morphine RIA. Both RIAs showed a first-order elimination rate after i.v. intoxication (apparent plasma terminal half-life ranged from 2.9 to 4.7 hours for unchanged morphine and from 3.2 to 4.9 hours for total opiates) and a persistent opiate concentration with rebound after oral ingestion, suggesting a slow release of opiates from the gastrointestinal tract, in dealers and bodypackers. Moreover, i.v. and oral kinetic data were similar for the two RIAs, except for the ratio between total and unchanged morphine concentrations. The nonspecific morphine assay gave a threefold to 16-fold higher concentration than the specific morphine assay but with parallel kinetics for all patients. We conclude that the current, routine nonspecific morphine immunoassays could be a valuable analytical tool for investigating opiate toxicokinetics.